Selective encapsulation of hemoproteins from mammalian cells using mesoporous metal oxide nanoparticles

A key requirement in successful protein encapsulation is the fabrication of selective protein supercaptors that are not impeded by the physical shape and three-dimensional hydrodynamics of the protein, exhibit minimal clogging effect but with high protein retention, and with uniformly sized adsorbent pores. We report a novel nanomagnet-selective supercaptor approach in the encapsulation of hemoprotein from mammalian cells using mesoporous metal oxide nanoparticles (NPs). Different morphologies of mesoporous NiO and Fe₃O₄ NPs were fabricated. Among these nanoadsorbents, NiO nanoroses (NRs) had higher loading capacity of hemoprotein than NiO nanospheres (NSs) and nanoplatelets (NPLs), or even superparamagnetic Fe₃O₄ NPs. The key finding of this study was that mesoporous NiO nanomagnet supercaptors show exceptional encapsulation and selective separation of high-concentration Hb from human blood. In this induced-fit separation model, in addition to the heme group distributions and protein-carrier binding energy, the morphology and magnetic properties of NiO NPs had a key function in broadening the controlled immobilization affinity and selectivity of hemoproteins. In addition, thermodynamics, kinetics, and theoretical studies were carried out to investigate the optimal performance of protein adsorption.